
U.S. NAVY 

S of the Wi 



PANAMA 
CANAL ZONE 



DITTY BOX GUIDE BOOK SERIES 



BUREAU OF NiWIGATIO N 
NAVY DEPARTMENT 




Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2010 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/panamacanalzoneOOunit 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 




Published by 

BUREAU OF NAVIGATION 

under authority of the 

Secretary of the Navy 






LIBRARY OF CONQ«ISS 

lVIARl-1921 

OOGUMENTS DIVISION 



Contents 

Page 

Inteoduction --------- ----_9 

Blood and Gold ------------- 13 

The Eagle Digs ------15 

On Yellow Fevee - ------ 19 

FiNGEES OF IeON ------- ------20 

Colon to Balboa ------------- 22 

In Gaillaed Cut -------------26 

Canal and Navy -- ------ 30 

A EoMANTio Age -------------32 

The New Panama - - - - ' - - - - - - - - 37 

The Foety-ninees -. - - - - - - - - - - - - 42 

Ceocodile Pools - - - - - - - - - - - - - 46 

Oechid Hunting -------------48 

Bathing Beaches ------------- 51 

Golf and Tennis -------------53 

The Canal Police ------------56 

Fish and Game - ------- -57 

A Mastee Buildee ------------ 53 



Five 




Foreword 

INCE warships flying the American flag have made the world of 
waters their cruising grounds and since they carry with them 
scores of thousands of seagoing Americans, the interest of the 
Nation in ports, far and near, has necessarily increased in recent 
years. 

In order to furnish valuable information to officers and 
enlisted men of the Navy who visit these foreign countries — as 
well as to other travelers on official business — the Bureau of 

Navigation is preparing individual guidebooks of the principal ports in all 

quarters of the globe. 

Although every effort has been made to include accurate information on 
the most important subjects connected with this port, it is realized that some 
important facts may have been omitted and that certain details may be 
inaccurate. Any information concerning omissions or inaccuracies, addressed 
to Guidebook Editor, Bureau of Navigation, will be appreciated. The infor- 
mation will be incorporated into revised editions. 

Acknowledgment is made to the National Geographic Society for its 
suggestions, both as to editorial policy and interesting details concerning 
Panama Canal and its environs. 

Acknowledgment is also made to Underwood & Underwood, New York, 
for the following photographs, which are copyrighted. 



Seven 




Introduction 

HIS is a tale of the Panama waterway and the Canal Zone— a 
narrative of an epic struggle against disappointments and 
failures and misfortunes that were overcome only by the 
courage and resourcefulness of the American people. 

Both romance and realism have their part in the con- 
struction of the story — the romance of the past and the realism 
of the present, the two being woven together in the making 
of the tale. 

We go back through the centuries to the day on which Balboa reached 
the mountain divide on the backbone of Panama, and shading his eyes from 
the hot glare of the copper ball in the sky, gazed over the blue waters of the 
Pacific and called them the ''southern seas." 

We travel over the route followed by the pack-train mules, whose necks 
were hung with silver bells that tinkled sweetly as the animals struggled over 
the rocky trails, weary under their burdens of Indian gold for the Spanish 
galleons in Limon Bay. 

The tale carries us through the days of the Spanish Main, when Sir Henry 
Morgan and his bearded English buccaneers, in flowing sashes and garb that 
was scented with salt, landed from their pirate ships and ravaged the coast, 
looting Old Panama and despoiling the galleons of their tarnished gold. 

We come down through the years to the day when De Lesseps, confident 
of success after digging the Suez Canal through the shifting sands of Egypt, 



Nine 



traveled to Panama, and, backed by a coterie of French financiers, attempted 
to wed the Atlantic to the Pacific as he had joined the Mediterranean and the 
Red Sea. 

After sympathizing with De Lesseps in his hour of defeat we read on with 
quickened interest, for now there is something in the story that makes the 
blood of every American course faster through his veins, and quickens his 
pulse, and brings a flush of pride to his face, and makes him happy in the 
knowledge that he is a citizen of the United States. 

We see a mighty Nation reach down from the North and pluck rock and 
soil from their resting places, and jar hill and mountain with blasts of dynamite, 
and build massive locks, until the task is completed and the dream of centuries 
has been realized at last. 

During all this time we are perfectly aware that the other nations of the 
world are watching and waiting — watching to see whether the project shall 
fail; waiting to applaud should the project succeed. And, as we know, the 
time came for applause and it was rendered in full measure, for the world is 
generous in its admiration of any great service to humanity. 

The greater part of this narrative will be taken up with the latter pages 
of the history of Panama and the Canal Zone — ^for there is written in them 
a story that fascinates the reader, if he be a foreigner, and especially justifies 
his feeling of pride in his country, if he be an American. 

We read of the day in October, 1913, when President Wilson pressed a 
button in the White House in Washington, sending an electric current 2,000 
miles to explode 40 tons of dynamite that shattered the Gamboa dike — ^last 
barrier to the waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. 



Ten 



And we read, with a smile, perhaps — but always with a smile of complete 
understanding — that a drab little rowboat was the first craft to pass through 
the canal after the destruction of the dike. The American realizes the motive 
behind such an act, for because he is an American he knows of the innate 
dislike of his country for ostentatious pomp and ceremony, regard for which 
might cause careful selection of the ship to first traverse the waters of the canal. 
Was it not a typically American act ? The undertaking had been successful 
after years of effort, and now that it was done the Nation refused to be greatly 
astonished or seriously consider that something in the nature of a miracle 
had actually been performed. ' ' We started it and we finished it ! " is a fair exam- 
ple of the comnient on the building of the Panama Canal. National egoism ? 
Perhaps. But it was the same spirit of egoism that enabled the American 
people to build a Navy and an Army that started and finished a many times 
more stupendous task during the course of the World War just concluded. 

And now we proceed to the story of Old Panama and the building of the 
canal, a narrative of battles with fever and malaria, and landslides and native 
superstitions and other hindrances, and the spending of thousands of lives and 
hundreds of millions of dollars in gold and silver. It is one of the series of 
American services to mankind — beginning with the formation of a great 
Nation from the virgin wilderness of North America and ending with the suc- 
cessful conclusion of the war in Europe. 



Eleven 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 




BLOOD AND GOLD 

ASCO Nunez de Balboa, 
a member of a poverty 
stricken family of the 
Spanisb nobility, led a 
more or less dissolute life 
during his youth, but 
when he grew older gave 
himself up to more 
worthy pursuits and decided to follow the 
sea. He joined a trading expedition to 
the New World and established himself 
in Santo Domingo, and, after a period of 
adversity, became the governor of the 
colony at Darien, 

Reports telling of the existence of a 
great ocean began to reach Balboa, and 
his curiosity being aroused, he organized 
an expedition to find the unknown sea. 
On September 25, 1513, the explorer 
arrived at a mountain on the Isthmus of 
Panama, and from the summit he gained 
his first view of the Pacific, being the 
first European to penetrate to the western 
coast of the New World. 

Four days later Balboa reached the 
shore and took possession in the name of; 



the King of Spain, and gave the name 
"South Sea" to the vast expanse of 
water extending for thousands of miles 
toward the strange and unexplored 
regions to the west — and "South Sea" 
was later changed to "Pacific Ocean." 

The Isthmus became a trade route 
between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, 
the highway of commerce passing over- 
land from Panama to Porto Bello. Gold 
from the mines and treasure houses of 
Peru was carried on the backs of mules 
to Limon Bay and transferred to the 
holds of great galleons from Spain. 

Historical accounts of those romantic 
days in Panama are filled with thrilling 
stories of fights between the Indian 
natives and the invaders who roamed the 
country in search of gold, practicing every 
form of cruelty and not hesitating to 
assume the rdle of ghouls, looting the 
sepulchres of Peru and the Isthmus in 
search of the precious metal. 

After the gold had been placed in the 
galleons, it still had to be taken to Spain 
before the Spaniards could be assured of 
its possession; and much blood was shed 
and treasure ships were sunk and fortunes 

Thirteen 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



Rusted and Decaying Machinery Belonging OriginaUy 
to the French. 

changed hands in desperate battles on 
the high seas between freebooters and the 
sailors and soldiers on the Spanish craft. 
Old Panama was established in 1519, 
and remained the principal city on thai 

Fourteen 




Pacific coast until Sir Henry Morgan, 
then an admiral in command of a force 
of Enghsh buccaneers, sailed to Cuba 
and the mainland, and in 1671 he cap- 
tured and destroyed the city. 

The ruins of Cld Panama still remain, 
and the visitor who travels that way will 
see the ancient gates and walls where the 
gallant soldiers of Spain fought the 
bronzed freebooters under Morgan, and 
died — some silent and some screaming — 
under the swords of the men in jackboots, 
whose leather coats were spattered with 
blood and stained with powder and whose 
pockets were heavy with "good red gold." 

Since the discovery of the Pacific the 
advisability of digging a canal across the 
Isthmus had been discussed and Charles 
V of Spain ordered a survey, intending to 
begin construction of the waterway. The 
governor of Darien, however, declared the 
project impossible of success and the plan 
was abandoned. 

In 1551 another Spaniard, De Gomara, 
urged the building of a canal; but the 
Government of Spain had decided to 
devote its entire attention to gaining 
control of trade between Europe and 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



America, and the death penalty was pro- 
vided for anyone who should seek a better 
route from Porto Bello to Panama. 

The discovery of gold in California in 
'49 greatly augmented traffic across the 
Isthmus, and during President Grant's 
administration the popular cry for action 
became so great that Congress passed a 
resolution providing for a survey of the 
Isthmus by officers of the Navy. A com- 
mittee was appointed in 1872 to consider 
the report, out before definite action 
could be taken a concession was granted 
by the Government of Colombo, then in 
control of Panama, to Lieut. Lucien 
Napoleon Bonaparte Wyse of the French 
Army. 

Lieut. Wyse sold his concession to 
French financiers, who engaged De Les- 
seps to construct the canal, and the com- 
pany began operations in 1881 with every 
hope of success; but the mountains of the 
Isthmus presented more formidable ob- 
stacles than the sands of Suez, and the 
project was practically abandoned. 

The French expended $300,000,000 
and failed. The Americans spent $375,- 
000,000 and succeeded, although only 





1,000,000 worth of the excavating done 
by De Lesseps was available for the canal 
as finally completed. The failure of the 
French to finish the work of construction 
is ascribed to two reasons — waste of funds, 
and tropical diseases that killed hundreds 
and thousands of canal workers, both 
engineers and laborers. 

THE EAGLE DIGS 

INCE the French embarked 
on the project to build 
the canal the United 
States had been looking 
on with friendly interest, 
knowing that a great 
service would be per- 
formed in the completion 
of the waterway, and perfectly willing to 
give France the credit provided she suc- 
ceeded in connecting the two oceans. 

When the De Lesseps venture met 
disaster it looked as if the canal would 
remain only a dream, possibly for centu- 
ries, exciting perhaps the imagination of 
engineers, but still making it necessary 
for ships to brave the stormy passage 

Fifteen 




PANAMA CANAL ZONE 




Pacific Fleet Passing Through Gaillard Cut 

through the Straits of Magellan or around 
the Horn. 

Congress and President Roosevelt, 
however, realized the great value of a 
Panama Canal to the United States, both 
in a naval and in a commercial sense, 
especially after the lesson taught through 
the voyage of the gallant U. S. S. Oregon 
around Cape Horn during the Spanish- 
American War. 

Sixteen 




The Nation, too, appreciated very 
keenly the fact that such a canal would 
decrease the distance by sea from New 
York to San Francisco by 8,500 miles 
and the distance from New York to 
Australia by 4,000 miles, and that the 
ports of the opposite coasts of North and 
South America would be brought closer 
together by a waterway across the Isth- 
mus of Panama. 

Congress authorized the expenditure 
of $40,000,000 for acquiring the property 
and rights of the new company that had 
succeeded the De Lesseps organization, 
and the offer was accepted in 1903. The 
United States then proposed to give the 
sum of $10,000,000 to the Government of 
Colombia for the privilege of building the 
canal, but the proposal was rejected by 
the Colombian Congress. 

The natives of Panama had been 
following the negotiations with consider- 
able anxiety, for they believed the United 
States would undertake to build a canal 
across Nicaragua if the controversy were 
continued much longer, and they knew 
in such event their opportunities for pros- 
perity would vanish. 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



The logical outcome was a revolution, 
which was begun by the patriots of Pan- 
ama, and when, during the course of the 
uprising the Colombians threatened to 
massacre the Americans in Colon, the 
captain of the gunboat U. S. S. Nashmlle 
landed 42 sailors and marines, who speed- 
ily restored order. 

The revolution having succeeded, the 
United States, through President Koose- 
velt and Congress, recognized the new 
Republic, and a treaty was negotiated by 
Secretary Hay in 1903 by which our 
country paid $10,000,000 to Panania, and 
in return was given the perpetual right to 
construct and maintain a canal across the 
Isthmus. 

Balboa and Cristobal, the principal 
ports of the Republic, passed under 
American control, while the cities of 
Panama and Colon were retained by the 
local government, although the United 
States provided that the Canal Zone 
authorities should have the privilege of 
interfering should sanitary conditions or 
political disturbances warrant such action. 

A treaty had been negotiated with 
Great Britain whereby it was agreed that: 




Palm Avenue from the Point, Cristobal 

the United States should dig the canal, 
own and operate it when completed, and 
open it to the commerce of the world, and 

Seventeen 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 




Negro Quarter in Colon Before American Occupation 

the American people now entered into the 
task with the same courage and resource- 
fulness they had displayed in previous 
enterprises of a nature affecting the wel- 
fare of the Nation. 

On May 8, 1904, the Canal Zone was 
formally taken over by the United States 
and from then until the oceans were joined 
in 1913, the workers in the Canal Zone 
engaged in the glorious task of writing a 
most brilliant chapter in the history of the 
United States. The American eagle was 
using its talons — and soil and rock flew, 

Eighteen 



with a vengeance. Perhaps the eagle was 
breathing a bit hard, but still it was 
breathing when the Gamboa Dike was 
shattered almost 400 years to a day from 
the time Balboa discovered the Pacific 
Ocean. And then the American eagle 
smoothed its ruffled feathers and flapped 
its wings in triumph; and the British 
lion raised his tawny mane and gave a 
roar of approval and was inclined to 
lionize the eagle; the French rooster 
pointed to Suez and crowed; the Russian 
bear said he thought he could bear it; the 
German eagle screamed a word of com- 
ment to the Austrian eagle; the Turkish 
turkey gobbled; and all proceeded to 
benefit by the industrious digging of the 
American eagle. 

But in telling of the final triumph of 
the American national bird we are getting 
ahead of our story, for there is much in 
the history of the building of the canal 
that is so interesting as to deserve atten- 
tion; so we shall begin here with the story 
of the fight against yellow fever, and then 
proceed to the tale of the digging of the 
''big ditch." 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 




ON YELLOW FEVER 

ONTEMPOEARY histori- 
ans speak in measured 
tones of horror in discuss- 
ing the black plague that 
swept over Europe dur- 
ing the Middle Ages, and 
the pestilences that have 
ravaged the Eastern 
world since the early days of history, but 
the damage wrought by such epidemics is 
hardly more appalling than the harvest of 
death gathered by tropical diseases in 
Panama before the arrival of American 
sanitary engineers on the Isthmus. 

Yellow fever was the most feared of the 
tropical diseases in Panama, and none knew 
the obstacles to progress presented by the 
malady better than the American Govern- 
ment, for the fever had swept our eastern 
and southern coasts during the previous 
century, and had spread also to the 
Spanish possessions, killing nearly 40,000 
persons in Havana, over 100,000 in Spain, 
and many thousands more in Central 
America. 

The fever not only struck down 
engineers and laborers engaged in digging 



the canal but destroyed the morale of 
those who survived, and almost un- 
believable stories have been told of orgies 
of crime in Panama during the fever 
seasons, before the United States gained 
possession of the Canal Zone. 

Affairs soon took a turn for the better. 
Surgeons of the Army Medical Corps had 
found in Havana that yellow fever was 
carried by the bite of a species of mos- 
quito, and Col. W. C. Gorgas, who was 
made chief sanitary officer of the Canal 
Zone, undertook to ''clean up the place." 
He succeeded to such a measure that his 
name stands beside that of Maj. Gen. 
George C. Goethals, who finished the 
canal as head of the third Isthmian 
Canal Commission. 

Col. Gorgas' success was made possible 
by the heroism of Jesse William Lazear 
and Maj. Walter Reed, Americans; Dr. 
Aristide Agramonte, Cuban; and James 
Carroll, Englishman; who conducted valu- 
able experiments in Havana. Lazear died 
from yellow fever after letting himself be 
bitten by a mosquito carrying the germ 
of the disease, while Carroll contracted 
yellow fever but recovered. 

Nineteen 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



Col. Gorgas established quarantines at 
the ports, fumigated houses, destroyed 
rain-water barrels and cisterns, and in 
Panama closed several popular old wells 
when he found their supply of water, for 
the most part, was obtained by drainage 
from the local cemetery. He cut thous- 
ands of acres of brush and grass, dug 
miles of drainage ditches, and covered the 
swamps with oil to exterminate the mos- 
quito larvae as they came to the surface. 
He laid sewers and built hospitals, and 
carried on his work so well that the 
yellow fever fled from Panama in 1905 
and took with it malaria, another disease 
of the country. To-day the Isthmus is 
fully as healthy as the United States and 
in much better condition than many 
European cities, and the song of Gilbert, 
poet of Colon, no longer holds true in the 
Canal Zone: 

"Beyond the Chagres River, 

'Tis said (the story's old), 
Are paths that lead to mountains 

Of purest virgin gold. 
But 'tis my firm conviction, 

\Miate'er the tales they tell, 
That beyond the Chagres River 

All paths lead straight to Hell. " 

Twenty 





FINGERS OF IRON 

ORK on the canal had been 
progressing steadily since 
the transfer of the French 
concession to the United 
States, but the ever- 
present yellow fever had 
greatly impaired the effi- 
ciency of the Canal Zone 
workers. 
Now that the menace presented by 
tropical diseases had been eliminated, the 
process of tearing millions of cubic yards 
of dirt and stone from the bed of the 
canal went ahead with astonishing swift- 
ness, and the workers settled into the 
stride that is t5rpical of Americans who 
see a difficult task before them and are 
determined to finish it, whatever the cost, 
in the shortest possible time. 

Dredges used by the French company 
in their effort to dig the canal, and then 
abandoned, were repaired, scores of new 
dredges and steam shovels were brought 
down from the North, and all were set to 
work piling earth and rock in barges or 
flat cars that dumped their loads at sea 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



or on low swampy ground conTeniently 
near the canal. 

There were literally thousands of 
fingers of steel digging into the soil, 
getting a go_od grip on earth and rock 
and then tearing it from the place where 
it had rested since the world began. 
And where dredge and steam shovel failed 
dynamite was brought into play, and the 
sound of explosions in the distance so 
resembled the mutter of thunder that the 
newcomer to the Canal Zone would glance 
hastily at the sky, half expecting to see 
black clouds banked on the horizon with 
streaks of lightning playing in and out, as 
a white thread is carried by the flying 
shuttle through the weave of black cloth 
on the loom. 

Locks and dams and breakwaters and 
hundreds of miles of railroads were built, 
artificial lakes were created, and during all 
this time the fingers of steel kept boring 
into the earth, carrying on a desperate 
fight against time and landslides, until the 
canal had been practically completed and 
the drab little rowboat plowed through 
the waterway to prove that the American 
people had succeeded in their venture. 



The rowboat was followed by a tug- 
boat, and then, at the official opening of 
the canal in 1915, an imposing array of 
ships passed through the canal, and 
engineers and laborers were content to 
rest on their laurels for a day, and breathe 
deep sighs of satisfaction in the knowledge 
of a task well done. But the struggle was 
not over by any means. The finishing 
touches on the canal had to be made and 
there was the constantly recurring fight 
against landslides, which have continued 
until the present day and will probably 
challenge the ingenuity and patience of 
Canal Zone engineers for many years. 

Any attempt to follow in detail the 
history of the building of the canal, from 
the day the United States took the 
project over until the waterway was 
completed, a half score of years later, 
would require scores of bulky volumes. 
So let it suffice to say that the estimated 
cost of building the canal was $375,200,- 
000, including 120,000,000 for sanitation, 
$7,382,000 for civil administration, and 
$50,000,000 paid to the second French 
canal company and to the Republic of 
Panama for property and franchises. 

Twenty-One 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 




The Tug "Gatun" in Gatun Lock, the First Vessel to Pass 
through the Lock 

Since the American Government took 
over the work in 1904 there have been 

Twenty- Two 



approximately 278,570,372 cubic yards of 
material excavated and 30,856,744 cubic 
yards of dry and hydraulic fill placed in 
the locks, dams, and spillways. The work 
was accomphshed by a force numbering, 
in normal times, 5,000 Americans, 4,000 
Europeans, and 30,000 West Indian Ne- 
groes. 

In the following pages we shall follow 
the route of the canal from one port of 
entry to the other, and see for ourselves 
the results of years of labor done in the 
American way and by and under the 
guidance of American citizens. 

COLON TO BALBOA 

HEN the traveler is told 
that the Atlantic door to 
the Panama Canal is far- 
ther west than the Pacific 
door, he is inclined to be 
a bit puzzled, since he 
knows that the Atlantic 
Ocean is east of the Pa- 
cific. The anomaly is explained by the 
fact that the general direction of the 
waterway is from northwest to southeast, 




PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



thus placing the Pacific port of entry 
about 23 miles farther east than the 
Atlantic port of entry. 

The American port of Cristobal stands 
at the Atlantic entrance, and, provided 
the traveler visits the city before pro- 
ceeding through the canal, he is given an 
opportunity to view, first-hand, some- 
thing of the great work accomplished by 
American engineers along the 10-mile strip 
of Panama included in the Canal Zone. 

Under the supervision of the Canal 
Commission the harbor facilities have been 
greatly improved, and the cleanliness of 
the town bears striking evidence of the 
thoroughness of the engineers in charge 
of sanitary work. The older city of Colon, 
which remains under the jurisdiction of 
the Republic of Panama, is separated from 
Cristobal by a narrow street. Cristobal 
was founded by the French in 1880, while 
Colon dates back to the middle of the 
nineteenth century when the Panama 
Railroad was built across the Isthmus. 

Balboa is the American port of entry 
on the Pacific side of the canal, and near 
Balboa is the Port of Panama, which 
should not be confused with Old Panama, i 



whose picturesque ruins rest in the jungle 
about five miles away. 

The canal passes through Gatun Lake, 
the surface of which rises 85 feet above sea 
level, and dredged channels from each side 
carry the ships to the locks, raising them 
on a level with the lake. Miraflores and 
Pedro Miguel Locks stand on the Pacific 
side and Gatun Locks on the Atlantic 
side of the lake. 

The entire length of the canal, includ- 
ing the dredged portions extending to deep 
water at either entrance, is 48.84 nautical 
miles, a little over 50 statute miles; and a 
boat requires from 10 to 12 hours' time in 
passing from one ocean to the other. 

A depth of 35 feet is maintained in the 
dredged channels and a depth of 40 feet 
throughout the remainder of the canal, 
whose width accommodates two large 
boats side by side, and whose depth is 
beyond the draft required by any ship 
afloat. 

Gatun is an artificial lake created by a 
dam across the Chagres River, necessitat- 
ing the relocation of the Panama Railroad 
and the destruction or removal of several 
towns, one of them, being Gorgona, with a 

Twenty- Three 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 




Landing Pigs at Panama City 

population of over 3,000. The great 
machine shops of the Canal Commission 
were maintained in Gorgona in addition 
to the homes of many American and for- 
eign employees. 

Twenty-Four 



Mirafiores Lake, also artificial, stands 
farther toward the Pacific, being formed 
by the construction of the Mirafiores 
Locks and Dam — so Panama may be 
called a lake canal as well as a lock canal. 

One of the principal differences be- 
tween the Panama and Suez Canals lies in 
the series of massive locks necessary to the 
maintenance of the former, while the latter 
passes through comparatively level terri- 
tory. 

In going through the Panama Canal 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific a ship 
encounters the first series of locks at 
Gatun. The locks are three in number 
and extend for slightly more than a mile 
along the course of the canal. At the 
Pacific end of Gatun Lake the ship is 
lowered into Mirafiores Lake. The Pedro 
Miguel Lock extends for three-quarters of 
a mile along the course of the canal. 
From Mirafiores Lake the ship is lowered 
into the Pacific Ocean tlirough the Mira- 
fiores Locks, which are slightly less than 
a mile long. 

The entire series of locks is built in 
parallel chambers, making it possible for 
vessels to pass without loss of time. The 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



chambers are uniformly 1,000 feet long, 
IIQ feet wide, and each have an average 
lift of about 30 feet. 

There are intermediate gates in each 
lock so that the chambers may be short- 
ened if necessary. The locks are massive 
concrete structures, controlled and lighted 
by electricity and equipped with electric 
locomotives, which not only tow all vessels 
through the locks but also act as traveling 
capstans to keep them clear of the lock 
walls. The gates are made of steel, 7 feet 
thick, 65 feet long, and from 47 to 82 feet 
high, weighing from 390 to 730 tons each. 

Intermediate gates are used to divide 
most of the locks into chambers to con- 
serve time and water during the passage 
of small vessels. The Miraflores Locks, 
which have the highest walls and the 
highest gates, are unique in that they have 
no intermediate gates. 

The Gatun Dam, almost one-and-a-half 
miles long and half a mile wide at its base, 
is one of the many feats of engineering 
accomplished by the canal builders. 

The dam is over 100 feet above sea 
level, and in reality is an artificial ridge. 




Pacific fleet Destroyers, Gatun Locks 

uniting the high hills on either side of the 
Chagres Valley and impounding the waters 
of the river in a huge reservoir. The space 
between the walls on either end of the dam 
is filled with sand and gravel, while the 
top — ^upstream and downstream por- 
tions^s completely riprapped. The spill- 
way, 120 feet long and 285 feet wide, is 
cut through solid rock near the center of 
the dam and is lined throughout with 

Twenty-Five 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



concrete. A dam in the form of an arch 
has been built across the opening of the 
channel. 

An eastern dam connects the Pedro 
Miguel Locks with the high ground to the 
west and at the south end of Gatun Lake ; 
and dams also connect the walls of Mira- 
flores Locks with the high ground on 
either side. 

IN GAILLARD CUT 

NCIENT poets sang of won- 
drous feats of strength 
and endurance among the 
men of their respective 
nations; they wove tales 
of gossamer fineness about 
the mythical achieve- 
ments of their forebears; 
they spoke of the pyramids and massive 
temples and moated castles as the height 
of human endeavor in building. 

But their hymns of praise would be- 
come ''puny whispers and gapings" were 
they privileged to look down through the 
centuries and see the men of a Nation, then 
unborn, snatch out the vitals of a mig 

Twenty-Six 





mountain and set ships a-sailing on the 
roof of the world. 

The world of to-day may well regret 
that Homer, ancient author of epic poems, 
does not live in the present as he lived 
in the past' — ^for only the writer of the 
Iliad and the Odyssey could write fittingly 
of the struggle between man and moun- 
tain in the battle of Gaillard Cut, in the 
Canal Zone of Panama. 

Before the Americans caught up the 
gauge of battle and entered on the war 
with Culebra, the French had tried to 
pierce the mountain, but succeeded only 
in wounding the upper surface, and then 
abandoned the fight, baffled and admitting 
defeat. 

The mountain had won a temporary 
victory, and was fast binding up its inju- 
ries with the soothing bandages of tropical 
jungle, when the new antagonist presented 
himself and plunged immediately into the 
fray. 

Culebra Cut, now officially known as 
Gaillard Cut, was to be nine miles long, 
of an average depth of 120 feet, and at 
no place less than 300 feet in width. 
The battle began, and for years the rocky 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 




Pacific Fleet Destroyers, Gatun Lock 

slopes echoed and reechoed with the roar 
of exploding dynamite, mingled with the 
sullen mutter of landslides as they were 
sent by the mountain into the cut — as if 
Culebra were alive and endeavoring to 
cover its scars with rock and soil, as the 
injured elephant slaps mud on the gaping 
wounds inflicted by the hunter. 

It was estimated that 53,000,000 cubic 
yards of material would be removed before 
the cut was completed, but so numerou 




Ponderous Gear Wheels and Metal Arms Which Open 
and Close the Gates 

were the landslides that over 105,000,000 
cubic yards of soil were removed by the 
thousands of men who swarmed ant-like 
through the channel, and dug away with 
steam shovels and dredges, and used over 
6,000,000 pounds of dynamite every year 
in blasting rock and dirt and clay. 

An artificial canyon now extends 
through the mountain, and filling the 
canyon is a broad stream of water, skirted 
by tall hills, and banks high in some places 

Twenty-Seven 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 




The Completed Gaillard Cut at Empire, Looking North 

and sloping in others, with here and there 
a deep gap that stands in silent token of 
another landslide overcome by engineers 
in worn and faded khaki and "West 
Indian laborers in blue overalls." 

Ships passing through Gaillard Cut — 
or through any of the locks for that 
matter — are not allowed to proceed under 
their own power, but must be towed by 
electric locomotives operating on the 
lock walls. 

Twenty-Eight 



Upon arrival at the terminal port, the 
ship is visited by quarantine and boarding 
officers, mail and telegrams are delivered, 
and other business transacted. Provided 
advance information has been received, 
coal, oil, and other supplies are waiting to 
be taken on board, and if tolls and other 
charges have been paid in advance and a 
tonnage certificate obtained, the vessel 
may pass through the canal without 
further delay. 

When the ship enters a lock the valves 
in a system of culverts in the side walls 
and under the floor are opened and the 
water enters, bringing the ship to the 
level of the next lock. After reaching 
the locks on the opposite slope, the ship 
descends when the water is lowered and 
then goes on its way to the ocean. 

It usually requires three hours to pass 
a vessel through all the locks; an hour and 
a half in the three locks at Gatim and 
about the same time in the three locks on 
the Pacific side. 

Ships can pass through the canal in 
ten or twelve hours, the time varying in 
accordance with the size and speed of 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



the individual craft. Sometimes inter- 
ocean traffic is delayed by landslides 
similar to that which halted H. M. S. 
Renown, carrying the Prince of Wales on 
his visit to the west coast of the United 
States and the Antipodes, in the spring of 
1920. The canal force has become so ac- 
customed to handling landslides, how- 
ever, that the obstructions are speedily 
removed unless they are greater in size 
than usual. 

The landslides have largely decreased 
in recent years, and while some work still 
remains to be carried out on the canal, it 
is entirely completed according to the 
original plans. 

Inter-ocean traffic via the Panama 
waterway has been proceeding for several 
years, and during the fiscal year 1919 
vessels to the number of 2,025 passed 
through the canal, 860 traveling from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific and 1,165 from the 
Pacific to the Atlantic. 

Tolls are levied on the basis of the 
cargo and passenger capacity of each 
vessel entering the canal. On loaded 
commercial vessels the toll is $1.20 per 





net canal-ton, plus $1.20 per 100 cubic 
feet of deck load, provided the sum of 
these charges does not exceed an amount 
equivalent to a charge of $1.25 per ton 
on the vessel as measured for American 
registry. Tolls at the rate of 50 cents per 
displacement-ton are levied on naval 
vessels, other than transports, colliers, 
hospital ships, and supply ships. 

Twenty-Nine 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 




CANAL AND NAVY 

"HEN the U. S._ S. Oregon 
started on its historic voy- 
age from San Francisco 
round South America and 
full-steam ahead up the 
east coast to Cuban wa- 
ters at the outbreak of 
the Spanish- American 
War, the American people were brought 
to a keen realization of the fact that a 
canal through the Isthmus of Panama was 
needed to assure the speedy concentration 
of the fleet in times oi emergency. 

More than two months elapsed be- 
tween the time the U. S. S. Oregon steamed 
out of San Francisco Bay and the day she 
joined the fleet, the voyage requiring six 
weeks longer than it would have taken had 
the Panama Canal been in existence. 
The U. S. S. Oregon would have traveled 
only 4,600 mUes had she found a canal 
across the Isthmus, whereas she sailed 
13,400 miles in the dash through the 
Straits of Magellan. 

Fortunately the delay did not have a 
deleterious effect on the fortunes of the 

Thirty 



fleet, since it was in so excellent a condition 
as to practically assure a victory without 
the help of the U. S. S. Oregon; but the 
American people considered what would 
have happened had the main fleet been 
cruising in the Pacific, with the Spanish 
fleet saiUng along the Atlantic coast, and 
because of that consideration, the need 
for a canal became very obvious to the 
American Government and people. 

Now that the waterway has been 
built, the Nation's first line of defense is 
in a better strategic position than ever 
before. Both the east and west coasts are 
protected by mighty fleets which can be 
concentrated in a comparatively short time 
to meet any menace on either flank of the 
continent. The fleet could be mobilized 
at either entrance of the canal, and with a 
cruising speed of 15 knots could reach the 
center of the Pacific coast in 9 days and 
the center of the Atlantic coast in 5 days. 
In the pre-canal days fleets stationed 
opposite the middle of each coast were, 
from a cruising point of view, as far apart as 
opposite sides of the world. Now they are 
as near as if one fleet were off Buenos Aires 
and the other off the port of New York. 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



The importance of fortifying the canal 
to prevent its capture by land or sea be- 
came apparent as soon as the work of 
digging the waterway was started, and 
the present defenses, consisting of large 
forts at each end of the canal and field 
works for mobile troops, are regarded as 
being practically impregnable to naval 
attack. 

Guns, mortars, and howitzers have been 
planted between Toro Point on the west 
side and Margarita Island on the east side 
of the Atlantic entrance, and also on the 
east side of the Pacific entrance to the 
canal. Massive steel and concrete forts 
have been erected to house the guns and, 
in short, the canal has been so completely 
fortified that a hostile force, attacking by 
sea, would very probably find that the 
Panama Canal had been turned into 
another Gibraltar, Heligoland, or Dar- 
danelles. 

The possibility of bombardment from 
the air has also been taken into considera- 
tion and airplanes and anti-aircraft guns 
are stationed at various places along the 
canal to serve in case of an attack by the 
air forces of an enemy. The operating, 




U. S. S. " New Mexico" in Pedro Miguel Lock 

machinery in the locks is placed within 
the square center piers and under a thick 
concrete ceiling, as a precaution against 
bombs, while the Gatun dam is so massive 
and the locks' gates so numerous that a 
hostile air squadron would find itself con- 
fronted with a difiicult assignment were 
it ordered to shatter the dam and let the 
water out of the lake, turning the canal 
into a dry channel. 

Thirty-One 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 




Ruins of St. Dominic's Church, "The Church of the Flat Arch" 

A permanent garrison is stationed in 
the Canal Zone to defend the waterway in 
case of an attack by land, and these 
troops, supported by the guns in the forts, 
are in a position to withstand a formidable 
landing force until reinforcements could 
arrive at the scene of operations. 

Thirty- Two 



The canal is now guarded by some 
8,000 officers and enlisted men, and 
watched day and night by sentries, and 
lighted at night by electricity to prevent 
enemy spies from blowing up the locks, 
while searchlights sweep the sea and the 
air as a precaution against surprise attacks 
by warships, airplanes, or dirigibles. 

Every foot of the waters around the 
canal has been mapped, and a hostile fleet 
would find itself decimated soon after the 
range finders in the forts passed their mes- 
sage to the guns and ' 'steel messages of 
death" began to pay their respects to the 
visiting enemy. 

A ROMANTIC AGE 

ERY noble and very loyal" 
was the title given to the 
city of Old Panama by 
the King of Spain in 1521, 
and the words of praise 
still remain true even 
though nearly four centu- 
ries have passed — ^for Old 
Panama is noble in the sense that the 
ruins of Greek and Roman temples and 




PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



the remains of Indian and Egyptian cities 
are noble, and the years have mellowed the 
ruins of this ancient town and made them 
more restful to the eye than modern cities. 

Old Panama passed from the roll of 
living cities long before the American Rev- 
olution, and the jungle has encroached, 
and for centuries the only residents were 
coral snakes and vipers, and color-splashed 
parrots, and grimacing monkeys, and wild 
deer with velvety eyes, and occasional 
hunters and travelers, and bewhiskered 
jaguars that set the forest life to rustling 
with their screams at night. 

Old Panama, in the heydey of Spanish 
rule on the Isthmus, contained hundreds 
of splendid mansions and thousands of 
other dwellings, and the population is said 
to have num.bered from 30,000 to 50,000. 
The city was surrounded by thick walls as 
a protection against buccaneers and hos- 
tile natives; and the people grew rich on 
the fruits of barter and plunder, and the 
rulers of Spain gloried in the extent of 
their possessions and the wealth of their 
subjects. 

Now all that remains of Old Panama 
is the vine-caressed ruins of the cathedral 




tower, and scattered bits of crumbling 
walls, and the scarred stone arches of two 
bridges, and a few odds and ends of 
masonry. 

The story of the capture and looting 
of Old Panama by Morgan and his men 
reads like a typical tale of the days when 
pirate ships sailed the Spanish Main and 
men were made to walk the plank, while 
the freebooters drank their tot of rum, and 
cheered the black flag, and counted their 
pieces of eight, and roared their maudlin 
songs : 

"Sixteen men on a dead man's chest, 
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum ! 
Drink and the devil have done for the rest, 
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum I " 

We go toward Old Panama by a 
//' "^ decisively unromantic trolley, which runs 
half the distance from the new city, or 
by a still more unromantic automobile; 
but when we arrive in the ruined city we 
can imagine ourselves as departing from 
the present; we turn back the leaves of 
history and shove the sands of time from 
the bottom to the top of the hourglass, 
and picture ourselves as being among Mor- 
gan's men in the attack on Old Panama. 

Thirty- Three 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



The vanguard of Morgan's buccaneers 
under Capt. Bradley, landed near the 
Chagres River in 1670 and attacked Fort 
San Lorenzo, an outlying position of de- 
fense for Old Panama. A garrison of 
Spanish troops and numbers of heavy 
carronades were stationed in a ditch out- 
side the fort, and they repulsed the Eng- 
lish for a moment, and many of the at- 
tacking force were killed or wounded. 

One of the pirates received an arrow 
through his body, but instead of giving up 
the fight he plucked the arrow out, tied 
some burning cotton around it, placed it 
in his musket and fired it into the fort, 
starting a fire which resulted in the ex- 
plosion of the powder magazine. The 
palisades were bin-ned and the slaughter 
continued until, at the storming of the 
fort in the morning, only a handful of the 
gallant Spanish defenders remained alive. 

Morgan arrived with his fleet and 
started up the Chagres River with 1,400 
men. Scores died of starvation or were 
shot by the Indians, but the remainder 
pluckilji^ struggled on until they reached 
the "Hill of the Buccaneers" and viewed 
Old Panama in the distance. 

Thirty-Four 




Meanwhile the alarm bells had rung in 
the city, swords were being sharpened, 
powder gathered, and bullets molded, 
while the inhabitants mobilized to defend 
themselves against the raiding pirates. 

Sunrise on the morning of January 28, 
1671, saw the beginning of the battle 
between the English and Spaniards. The 
attacking force advanced on the open 
plain before the city and were charged by 
the Spanish cavalry, but before the horse- 
men could reach the buccaneers they were 
fired upon and fully half of them tumbled 
from their saddles. The dead and dying 
were thrown in heaps with the wounded 
horses, whose screams rose even above the 
din of battle, and whose steel shod hoofs 
lashed out and exacted their toll of death 
from the ranks of the men who had ridden 
them into the fight. The ground was 
splashed with "red of a deeper hue" than 
that in the eastern sky where the morning 
sun was painting the horizon with many 
shades of color, and the yells of the com- 
batants and the death rattle in the throats 
of the dying made a weird contrast of 
sound with the sea breezes that whistled 
around the ramuarts of Old Panama. 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 




Cathedral of Panama 

^ The desperate Spaniards attempted to 
drive a herd of 2,000 wild bulls over the 



buccaneers, who cut some of them down 
and stampeded the others, and many Span- 
iards lost their lives under the hoofs of the 
bellowing, longhorned cattle, and others 
escaped only to fall under hails of 
leaden bullets from the muskets of the 
buccaneers. 

The Spanish horsemen were joined by 
foot soldiers and they, too, fought until 
600 of them were killed; and then the 
remainder broke ranks and ran panting 
into the city, where they spread panic 
among the defenders. 

Don Juan Perez de Guzman, the Span- 
ish governor, after trying vainly to rally 
his men blew up the powder magazines, 
and red flames began to lick at the walls 
and roofs of wooden houses — and ''Old 
Panama was dying." 

Morgan's men soon stormed the bat- 
teries standing near the bridges, and en- 
tering the city, endeavored to check the 
flames, but the sea breeze of the morning 
had continued and was now sweeping the 
fire through the streets and a few hours 
later only blackened stones and timber 
and glowing coals marKed the site of Old 
Panama. 

Thirty-Five 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 




The Panama Railroad Station, Panama City 

All through the night the buccaneers 
roamed the streets in search of loot, oc- 
casionally abandoning the hunt to run 
down and kill stray natives, who stared at 
them with frightened eyes from shadowy 
retreats in buildings or near the shattered 
walls. 

The buccaneers succeeded in their hunt 
for gold, and being laden with the heavy 
metal were unable or unwilling to con- 
tinue in pursuit of the few Spanish soldiers 
who had escaped from the city and were 
seeking refuge in the jungle. 

Thirty-Six 




Morgan remained in the ruins of Old 
Panama for a month, devoting his time 
and the time of his men to searching for 
gold which he suspected might have been 
hidden before the city fell. Although 
much treasure was produced the buc- 
caneer admiral was not satisfied with the 
results of the hunt, and tortured the 
prisoners in an effort to make them di- 
vulge the location of the stores of gold 
and other treasure. 

After the city and vicinity had been 
stripped of everything of value, Morgan 
marched his men back to Fort San 
Lorenzo, boarded his ship with all the 
gold, and sailed away, leaving his men 
without a leader. And quite probably — 
very probably — they considered them- 
selves better off without any leader than 
with one of Morgan's type. 

The buccaneer admiral sailed back to 
the West Indies, where he purchased a 
pardon from King Charles II, became 
lieutenant governor of Jamaica, and caught 
and hanged many of his former comrades. 
Having seen such a sorry end to such a 
daring expedition, we turn over the pages 
of history to more recent chapters, let the 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



sands of time run as usual, leave the days 
of romance behind, and arrive at the pro- 
saic present, which will in all probability 
be regarded as an age of romance by our 
successors. And now we proceed to the 
city of New Panama. 

THE NEW PANAMA 

HE New Panama is hardly 
as new as the word im- 
plies, since it was founded 
in 1673, two years after 
Morgan destroyed the old 
city, but retains the title 
the same as New York 
keeps the first word in 
its name long after the foimding of the 
city. 

The traveler entering Panama by rail- 
road, passes imder the high arched bridge 
near the old station where, in 1901, a 
force of revolutionists was decimated by 
fire from a machine gun operated by an 
American soldier of fortune in the Colom- 
bian Army. Incidentally, the soldier of 
fortune later became a foreman in the 
canal service, where he expended his excess 



1 


T 



energy by operating drills instead of 
South American machine guns. 

Leaving the train at the new Panama 
station of terra cotta and concrete, the 
traveler is immediately importuned by 
swarms of native cab drivers to visit the 
various sections of the city in their little 
two-seated buggies and doubtful looking 
automobiles. 

It was the cab drivers who were 

responsible for the term "spiggoty" being 

applied to the natives of Panama. When 

/ the Americans first arrived on the Isthmus 

) the cab drivers would shout "Me speak it, 

\il the English!" This soon changed to 

I ''spickety, " and then to "spiggoty, " and 

the American habit of applying nicknames 

^^=d\L soon settled the fate of the Panamanians. 

llFS They were '^spiggoties;" they are "spig- 

goties," and they alway^s wiU be ''spig- 

goties" as long as Americans stay in the 

Canal Zone. 

Following the Avenida Central, the 
principal thoroughfare of Panama, we 
proceed from the railway station to the 
Cathedral Plaza, passing through the out- 
skirts built since 1904 and grouped around 
the old suburb of Santa Anna, whose 

Thirty-Seven 




PANAMA CANAL ZONE 




The Cathedral Plaza 

main attraction is the churcL of Santa 
Anna, formerly the chapel of a Spanish 
nobleman. 

Several blocks beyond Santa Anna 
Plaza the traveler passes a street shrine 
with candles always lighted^ and enters, 

Thirty-Eight 



the older portion of Panama. The houses 
have walls from two to three feet thick, 
and narrow windows with heavy shutters, 
which enabled the builders to turn their 
domiciles into block houses during attacks 
on the city. 

When the traveler reaches the Cathe- 
dral Plaza he has arrived at the "heart 
and soul of the Republic of Panama." 
It was on the Plaza that the people pro- 
claimed their independence from Spain, 
and years later from Colombo, and 
Panama has as much regard for the place 
as the American people have for the 
Washington Monument or Boston Com- 
mon or the Liberty Bell. 

An effort was made after the second 
revolution to change the name of Cathe- 
dral Plaza to Independence Plaza, but was 
received with as little enthusiasm as 
would a suggestion that the American 
people change the name of Mount Ver- 
non, or adopt a new title for "The Star 
Spangled Banner" or "Dixie." 

Wliile the Panamanians insisted on 
retaining Cathedral Plaza, they have not 
been so careful to preserve other monu- 
ments of Old Panama. 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



The cathedrals and churches, some of 
which date back to the seventeenth cen- 
tury, have been renovated and painted 
until they appear as modern structures. 
A tin roof has oeen placed over the quaint 
tile roof of the chapel on Taboga Island; 
it has been proposed to tear down the 
old church of St. Dominic's containing 
the famous ''flat arch" that has with- 
stood earthquake and storm for 200 
years; and the picturesque ruins of the 
Jesuit monastery have been turned into 
an apartment house. 

Other "improvements" in Panama 
have been in better taste. A govern- 
ment palace, including the Treasury build- 
ing and the National Theater, has been 
erected on the site of the old Colombian 
barracks ; a new National Institute stands 
on the other side of the city, near Ancon, 
and scores of other splendid structures, 
both public buildings and private resi- 
dences, have risen since Panama gained its 
freedom in the early part of the century. 

The ground floor of the palace of the 
Bishop of Panama stands across the 
Plaza from the Cathedral and houses the 
offices of the national lottery. On week 




The Panama Lottery and Bishop Palace 

days men and women, old and young, 
rich and poor, gather around the lottery 
offices to buy and sell tickets; and at 
noon on Sunday the grand drawing takes 
place and some ticket holders are richer — 
and many are poorer and wiser — as every- 
one knows who bows before the Goddess 
of Chance. 

Early on Sunday evening the Pana- 
manian Republican Band marches to the 
Cathedral Plaza and the little brown 
musicians play martial airs and the drum- 
mer thumps his bass drum and feels very 
important; and the high and the low, 

Thirty-Nine 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 




Ancon and North End of Panama, from Ancon Hill — 
Pacific in Distance 

from president to peddler, stroll through 
the square and twirl their mustaches and 
buy boutonnieres of fragrant flowers from 
the flower women, who wear gaily-colored 
dresses, and stand on the corners and 
offer the bouquets for sale with a bit of a^ 

Forty 



wistful look in their eyes. And the di- 
minutive brown policemen stroll around 
with a self-satisfied air, and occasionally 
arrest a drunken laborer on a week-end 
spree and hale him off to durance vile, 
where he languishes until Monday. The 
brown policemen resume their walk 
around the Plaza. And the band plays 
through the twilight and into the even- 
ing time, and around the "witching hour" 
of midnight a majority of the residents 
have composed themselves to slumber, 
heeding the advice of the Bard of the 
Avon, that "sleep knits up the ravell'd 
sleeve of care" — while the drunken la- 
borer wonders how he can unknit the bars 
on the window of his dungeon cell. 

Bullfighting was popular in Panama 
until a few years ago, and now cockfight- 
ing has taken the place of the Spanish 
sport, and baseball is making a bid for 
popular favor. 

From Panama we proceed to Balboa — 
and Ancon, joined with Balboa — around 
the inland base of Balboa hill, and the 
headquarters of the Panama Canal Gov- 
ernment. Balboa- Ancon is one of the 
finest residential cities in the world, and 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



the only stores are Government-operated 
commissary stores and restaurants. 

The streets are wide, well lighted, and 
very clean, while the houses of wood or 
concrete are airy, with wide, well-screened 
porches. The Ancon Hospital, largest 
structure of its kind in the Canal Zone, 
has accommodations for 1,500 patients 
and maintains dispensaries to care for 
minor cases. 

A bus line operates from Fort Amador 
to the Tivoli Hotel, via the Balboa Club 
House and the Administration Buildings, 
and a trolley line runs from La Boca, at 
the coaling docks, to the Tivoli Hotel, via 
Panama City, with a branch as far as the 
Sabanas. 

Ships entering the harbor of Balboa- 
Ancon either lie at the dock or moor to 
buoys opposite the piers at Balboa, or 
anchor at the breakwater near Flamenco 
Island, since there is no anchorage in the 
harbor itself. 

The population of Cristobal, the Ameri- 
can port of entry on the Atlantic side of 
the canal, is comprised largely of Ameri- 
cans employed by the Government in the 
operation of the waterway. 




There is a commissary store in Cristo- 
bal, a commissary restaurant, Y. M. C. A, 
clubhouse, and other places of interest to 

Forty-One 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



visiting Americans. The harbor improve 
ments, the dredging, repair shops, and 
coahng station are rapidly increasing the 
importance of the town. 

Cristobal is considered a suburb of 
Colon, formerly known as Aspinwall, 
which stands on Manzanillo Island, a low 
body of land, skirted at two or three 
places by coral reefs. 

Although twice visited by destructive 
fires — once in 1885 and again in 1915 — • 
Colon has each time been rebuilt, and now 
has a population of about 26,000 souls. 
Together with all other towns in the Canal 
Zone, Cristobal has been thoroughly 
"scrubbed" by the American sanitary 
engineers; the streets and alleys are clean 
and well paved, and a modern system of 
waterworks has been installed. The 
swamps in the vicinity have been drained 
and the bushes and the grass burned, as 
part of the health program of the Isthmian 
Canal position, and the few mosquitoes 
still remaining in Colon find it very diffi- 
cult to exist. 

Colon is named in honor of Columbus, 
who landed at the port in 1502 (on his 
foiu"th voyage to America), and the statue i 

Forty- Two 




of Colimibus is one of the places of interest 
in the town. 

Colon is also the terminus of the 
Panama Railroad, whose 48 miles of rails 
extend across the Isthmus. The present 
road is the successor of the first Panama 
line, built over half a century ago, and its 
history is as closely connected with that 
of the canal as its steel rails are with the 
ties and rocky soil of the Panama roadbed. 

THE FORTY-NINERS 

OR 



over three hundred 
years after Panama was 
invaded by the soldiers 
of Spain the only means 
of passage across the Isth- 
mus was by canoe up the 
Chagres River and over 
the old paved road from 
Cruces to the City of Panama. 

Conditions remained the same until the 
discovery of gold in California and the 
arrival of those members of the army of 
Forty-niners who elected to travel west by 
way of Panama instead of crossing the 
Indian-infested plains on their journey to 
the gold fields. 




PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



The Forty-niners found themselves in 
difficulties almost as soon as they landed 
on the coast, and many of them devoutly 
wished that they had selected the over- 
land road across the plains instead of over 
the Isthmus of Panama. The travelers 
were paddled up the Chagres River in 
dugouts, and rode or walked over the old 
paved road, which had become little more 
than a string of mudholes. They passed 
through swamps, and were bitten by 
tropical snakes, and fought mosquitoes, 
and contracted yellow fever and malaria. 
Only the bravest kept on — the more timid 
turned back after a night or two on the 
jungle trail. 

When the Forty-niners reached Pan- 
ama City their difficulties increased, in 
spite of the fact that they had left the 
most dangerous part of the journey 
behind them. The city was crowded 
with other Forty-niners who had pre- 
ceded them and had waited for weeks and 
months for ships to take them to San 
Francisco, where hundreds of vessels were 
rotting in the harbor while their crews 
struck out for the gold fields. 




Statue of Columbus, Colon 

Since Americans must engage in some 
sort of enterprise wherever they are, the 
Forty-niners started two rival news- 
papers, the Star and Herald, now com- 
bined as the Panama Star and Herald, 
and also engaged in trade among them- 
selves and with the natives. Prices were 
raised until modern profiteering pales into 
insignificance when compared with the 
"gouging" practiced by the native trade 

Forty-Three 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 




pirates of Panama. Eggs brought from 
to $4 a dozen, and the prices of other ^ 

Forty-Four 



foods were proportionately high, while 
the landlords grew rich from renting 
sleeping space to the Yankees at $3 and 

per hammock. 

Complaints voiced by the Forty-niners 
reached the United States, and when Cali- 
fornia and Oregon were taken into the 
Union Congress authorized the establish- 
ment of a steamship line, operating along 
either coast, and American capitalists ob- 
tained permission from the Government 
of Panama to build a railroad across the 
Isthmus. 

The building of the Panama Raihoad 
was started in May, 1850, and the last 
rail was laid nearly five years later, in Jan- 
uary, 1855. Engineers had estimated that 
the road could be built for a million dol- 
lars, but the difficulties that presented 
themselves were so numerous that the 
cost was S8, 000, 000. Swamps had to be 
filled, trestles and bridges built, and prac- 
tically all materials, except ties, were 
brought down from the North. Malaria 
and yellow fever carried off hundreds of 
workers, and a popular tradition states 
that a life was lost for every tie on the 
road. This, however, is obviously an ex- 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



aggeration, since the deaths did not num 
ber over a thousand, according to credit 
able accounts of the building of the rail- 
road. 

The venture was looked upon as a fail- 
ure, and the stock of the Panama Railroad 
dropped in value; but even before the rail- 
road had been completed more than 
$2,000,000 worth of fares were earned, and 
in 10 years the road yielded nearly 
$12,000,000 in freight and passenger fares, 
and stockholders were growing rich on 
dividends of 24 per cent. The Panama 
Railroad monopolized the California and 
Atlantic trade until the completion of the 
Union Pacific Railroad and the establish- 
ment of the Pacific Steam Navigation Co., 
a British corporation, operating its ships 
around South America; and then the line 
began to decay and continued so until the 
canal undertaking gave it a new lease on 
life. The new Panama Railroad travels 
on the roadbed of the old for only a por- 
tion of the distance across the Isthmus, 
but travelers can understand some of the 
difficulties encountered by the American 
railroad pioneers who succeeded where 
others might have faUed, and whose 





Jungle and Mountain, Panama 

spirit was inherited by the American 
canal builders who succeeded where others 
did fail. 

The railroad now runs from Colon to 
Panama on the eastern side of the canal. 

Forty-Five 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



A branch line extends from Pedro Miguel 
to Las Cascadas, crossing the waterway 
on a swinging pontoon bridge at Paraiso. 
The road formerly followed the course of 
the Chagres from Gatun to Gamboa, and 
ran for the greater part of its course on 
the west side of the canal. 

Present passenger fares on the Pan- 
ama Raihoad are as follows: First class, 5 
cents per mile; second class, 2 cents per 
mile; first class, round trip, $2.50; second 
class, roimd trip, $1.50. The minimum 
charge for special trains — consisting of en- 
gine, baggage car and one coach, seating 
not more than 60 passengers — is fixed at 
$100. 

CROCODILE POOLS 

REAT man-eating croco- 
diles inhabit the rivers of 
Panama, especially the 
Chagres, and in the night 
time or when the reptiles 
are molested by hunters, 
their sluggish croaking, 
accompanied by malevo- 
lent snaps of their great jaws, send thrills 
of disgust through human beings who, 

Forty-Six 





may happen to be near, and cause the 
bird and animal life along the banks of 
the stream to stir uneasily in recollection, 
perhaps, of past encounters with the re- 
pulsive creatures. 

The crocodiles are in the habit of 
swarming in deep pools along the course of 
the river and lie with their snouts above 
water, or slip under the overhanging 
banks of the stream, in wait for their 
prey. The victim is seized in the wicked 
jaws or swept into the water with a blow 
of the reptile's tail, and drowned ; and the 
crocodile buries its victims until decay sets 
in, and then proceeds to dine on what it 
undoubtedly considers a choice morsel. 

Many white men and natives have re- 
turned to tell of stepping on what appeared 
to be slimy logs, half in and half out of the 
water on the banks of the pools, only to 
have the "logs" turn upon them, snap- 
ping, and waddling at them, webbed feet 
slapping the wet sand and tails ready to 
deliver a vicious blow. 

And other white men and natives have 
not returned to tell of their experiences, 
but have fallen in the trap of the crocodile 
and gone to make a reptilian feast. 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



Children, women, and men have been 
killed by the crocodiles, and in retali- 
ation hunting parties are organized, and 
then the echoes resound with the firing of 
guns and the death croak of the saurians 
as they lash the foul waters of the pools 
with their armored tails. 

The best known crocodile pools on the 
Isthmus are at the " Bayano," about forty 
miles down the coast from Panama Bay. 
The pools in Alligator Creek, as it is called, 
range from 10 to 25 feet in length. Other 
reptiles are represented on the Isthmus, 
among them being small boa constrictors, 
fer-de-lances, and coral snakes, while 
lizards ranging from 3 and 4 inches to 
6 feet in length, crawl around fields, 
swamps. Tillages and the ruins of old cities. 
The lizards are harmless, and the natives 
hunt and eat them, considering them 
quite a delicacy. 

The waters on either side of Panama, 
and in the Isthmus itself, literally swarm 
with edible fish and man-eating sharks, 
and also furnish excellent sport in the 
hunting of crocodiles. 

The leaf-cutting ant is one of the curi- 
osities of Panama. Travelers around the, 




Huge Alligator on the "Bayano" 

Canal Zone frequently discover trails an 
inch or two wide crowded with ants carry- 
ing bits of green leaves, which serve as 
miniature sun shades for the insects as 

Forty-Seven 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 




Native Life in the Banana Belt 

they hurry along the trails. The ants 
store the leaves until a fungus grows upon 

Forty-Eight 



them. The fungus is eaten, and then the 
leaves are discarded and new supplies 
brought to the "warehouses." 

Red ants have taken up their resi- 
dence in practically all houses in the Canal 
Zone, and food is seldom safe from their 
depredations. Scorpions and tarantulas 
are plentiful and greatly feared by the na- 
tives, but do less damage than small ticks, 
known as "red bugs," which burrow under 
the skins of human beings and animals. 
The "red bugs" work as much injury 
among the horses and cattle on the Isth- 
mus as the cattle ticks did among the cow 
herds on the western plains some years ago. 

ORCHID HUNTERS 

EEP in the jungle of Pan- 
ama the life of men, and 
birds, and animals is much 
the same as it was centu- 
ries ago, and when the 
traveler wanders off the 
beaten paths of the Ca- 
nal Zone and plunges into 
the tropical undergrowth he finds himself 
abruptly cut off from civilization and car- 






PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



ried back to the days of primeval forests 
and primitive mien. 

Among the most adventurous walkers 
of the jungle trails of Panama are the or- 
chid hunters, who sometimes risk their 
Uves in search of the valuable plants. 
The Holy Ghost orchid, one of the most 
beautiful of the flowers of Panama, 
blooms only once in two years, and then 
the petals open and disclose a delicate 
growth resembling a small waxen dove, 
which nestles in the blossom, as does its 
living prototype, in its nest of twigs and 
grass. 

The orchid hunters search particu- 
larly along the Atlantic side of the canal, 
since there the flowers are more plentiful 
than in other parts of Panama. Collectors 
have been so energetic in their search for 
the more rare and beautiful specimens 
that few of the wild plants are to be found, 
except in the depths of the jungle. 

In the forests we find mahogany and 
cedars, and great ceiba trees that tower 
above the surrounding forest as the steel 
masts on the warship tower above the 
deck. The trunks of the trees are inter- 
laced with vines and creepers, some of^ 




Rude Life of the Natives — ^A Hut in the Jungles of 
Panama 

them so thick and tough and pliable that 
machetes must be brought into play to 
clear a path before the travelers can pro- 
ceed on their way. And there are cocoa- 
nut palms and banana trees and hun- 

Forty-Nine 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 




Original Inhabitants of Panama, the San Bias Indians 

dreds of other varieties of plants and trees, 
all going to make up a carpet of green that 
covers a great part of the Isthmus. 

Fifty 



The animal and bird life of the jungles 
is almost as varied as the plant and tree 
life, and the brilliant plumage of the birds 
contrasted with more sombre coloring of 
mammals lends a pleasing contrast to the 
bright green of the tropical foliage and the 
sometimes blue and sometimes brown 
water of the streams winding through the 
unexplored reaches of the distant portions 
of the Republic. 

There are large and small parrots with 
Joseph's coats, and brightly-colored hum- 
ming birds, and black buzzards which flock 
also around the Canal Zone, and blue 
herons, and white cranes, and awkward 
pelicans, and song birds whose sweet trills- 
o'-morning would set a prima donna to 
weeping were she to attempt to rival them. 

And there are armadillos and little 
deer, hardly bigger than small dogs, and 
tapirs and anteaters, and in the most 
remote portions of the jungle there are 
black jaguars, and wild hogs, and colonies 
of grimacing, chattering, black-and-white 
monkeys, whose screams fill the air by day 
and night. 

The Atlantic side of the Isthmus of 
Panama, from about fifty miles east of 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 




Children Pounding Rice in a Native Village 

Colon to the boundary of South America, 
is occupied by the San Bias Indians, the 
descendants of the natives who were tor- 
tured by the Spaniards in their eternal 
search for gold, jewels and silver. 



The Pacific side is governed by another 
tribe of Indians, the Chucunaques, who, 
with the San Bias Indians, take particular 
pride in keeping their race free of admix- 
ture with foreigners. Members of the San 
Bias tribe are short and well-built, many 
of them resembling Japanese, although 
there is no established relation between 
the two. White men may visit San Bias 
towns during the daytime, but when night 
falls they are ordered to leave, and if they 
refuse, are often killed or taken captive, 
and hurried out of the Indian country. 

BATHING BEACHES 

OTH the Canal Zone and 
the Republic of Panama 
abound in places where 
travelers and Government 
employees and natives 
may splash and bathe to 
their heart's content. 
One of the most popu- 
lar surf bathing beaches lies at the mouth 
of the Chagres River, There is no regular 
means of transportation to the beach, but 
boats can be hired, and the visitor usually 

Fifty-One 




PANAMA CANAL ZONE 




The New Lighthouse on Toro Point 

finds that he has been well repaid for his 
time and trouble when he plunges into the 
surf and basks in the sun along the sandy- 
shore. The beach has its landmarks in 
the ruins of Fort San Lorenzo,. which was 

Fifty- Two 



built by the Spaniards in the sixteenth 
century. 

The island of Taboga, which lies about 
twenty-five miles by water from Balboa, 
also affords excellent swimming, and is a 
popular health resort for residents of the 
Canal Zone. There is a small hotel on the 
island where meals can be obtained, and a 
launch leaves Balboa twice daily for Tabo- 
ga, and starts on the return trip about two 
hours after departing from the mainland. 
The fare is about sixty cents each way. 

Boats are usually available for trips to 
Taboguilla Island, where a broad, sandy 
beach invites the visitor to go for a swim 
in the salt water. The tide reaches 14 feet 
on Taboguilla, and boats must anchor off 
the shore since there are no docking facil- 
ities. 

Men in uniform are given special rates 
at the Government-operated hotels in the 
Canal Zone — the Washington at Colon, and 
the Tivoli at Ancon. The Washington 
charges S3 to $4.50 for one person and $4 
to $7 for two persons in a room, and the 
corresponding rates at the Tivoli are $2 
to $4 and $3.50 to $6.50. The European 
plan is in vogue at both hotels. The Gov- 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



ernment on June 30, 1919, was also oper- 
ating the Hotel Aspinwall, 11 line res- 
taurants, and 4 labor messes. 

Laundries operating at both ends of 
the canal are prepared to handle ships' 
and passengers' laundry at reasonable 
rates, and vessels in transit through the 
waterway may forward their laundry on 
arrival and receive it at the port of de- 
parture. Laundry received at either the 
Ancon or Cristobal laundry before 9 a. m., 
except on Sundays and holidays, wiU be 
placed on the 5 o'clock train the same day, 
and, barring accidents, the train will cross 
the Isthmus in two hours. 

A system of trading by ''commissary 
books" is followed on the Isthmus, and the 
customer who makes purchases at the 
commissary stores is not permitted to pay 
with cash but must present a coupon 
book. The value of the "commissary 
books" ranges from $2.50 to $20, and they 
are arranged on the order of mileage 
books. 

Post offices are located in all the prin- 
cipal towns in the Canal Zone — 16 in 
number — 13 of them being money order 
stations. Canal Zone postage stamps 



must be used on all letters except those 
mailed on board ship. Postage on let- 
ters from the Canal Zone to the United 
States and its possessions is 2 cents an 
ounce or fraction thereof; foreign coun- 
tries, 5 cents for the first ounce and 3 
cents for each additional ounce or frac- 
tion thereof. The parcel-post rate be- 
tween the Canal Zone and the United 
States is 12 cents a pound or fraction 
thereof. 

GOLF AND TENNIS 

LUBHOUSES and play- 
grounds are maintained 
in the Canal Zone for the 
purpose of providing the 
canal employees and their 
families with the same 
amusements enjoyed by 
their fellow citizens in 
the United States, and visitors are given 
every opportunity to avail themselves of 
the recreational facilities. 

The Panama Club, having a 9-hole 
2-mile course, on the Sabana, east of the 
city of Panama, stands close to the shore 
of the bay and within a short distance of 

Fifty-Three 




PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



the tramway, and is also accessible by 
automobile via a macadamized road. 
The club's initiation fees to residents of 
the Isthmus amount to $25, and monthly 
dues are $3. Visitors who remain less 
than three months are admitted to the 
club by invitation and upon the payment 
of $10 a month. 

The Balboa Clubhouse has added a 
new motion-picture room to care for the 
increased patronage which has grown be- 
yond the capacity of the original hall, 
while new soda fountains and serving 
tables have been installed in all the five 
''gold" clubhouses. 

Navy and Army clubhouses have been 
established by the Y. M. C. A. at eight 
post and garrison houses, and both sailors 
and soldiers enjoy the privileges offered 
by the Canal Zone clubhouses. 

Tennis is very popular on the Canal 
Zone, and matches may be carried out 
under fleet arrangements, the same being 
true of baseball and other sports and 
amusements. 

Balboa has a stadium and baseball 
grounds, and, too, swimming pools under, 

Fifty-Four 



the supervision of competent instructors. 
There is a Canal Clubhouse on Ancon 
Hill, adjoining Balboa, with bowling al- 
leys, reading room, pool tables, and motion 
pictures. The Ancon Baptist Church 
keeps a reading room open to sailors and 
soldiers, while Balboa has two Y. M. C. 
A.'s, the Army and Navy, and the Canal 
clubhouses. 

The Navy maintains a submarine base 
and Naval Air Station at Coco Solo, just 
across from the bay from Colon, and the 
floor of the large balloon-hangar at the air 
station is sometimes used for dances. Al- 
though there are no accommodations for 
liberty parties remaining on shore all 
night, the transportation facilities, con- 
sisting of carriages and some automobiles, 
are usually good. 

In the month of February, 1919, there 
were approximately 23,000 persons on the 
pay rolls of the canal force and the Pan- 
ama Railroad Company, about 3,000 of 
the entire number being American citizens. 
The workers are paid either in gold or 
silver — those on the "gold roll" being 
mechanics, skilled artisans of all classes, 
clerks, and the higher officials, while those 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



on the ''silver roll" include, principally, 
the common laborers, practically all of 
whom are foreigners or natives of Panama. 

The ''gold roll" employees are paid in 
United States currency, while the ' ' silver 
roll" employees receive their wages on 
the basis of Panama currency or its 
equivalent. 

American money is widely circulated 
in the Canal Zone, and, of course, the 
various denominations need no explain- 
ing. The Panama coins are as follows: 
The peso, 50 cents in American money; 
the medio-peso, or 50-cent piece, worth 25 
cents in American money, and the size of 
the American half-dollar; the dime, worth 
10 cents in American money, and almost 
identical in size with the American 
quarter; the 5-cent piece of silver, about 
the size of the American dime; and the 
23/^-cent piece — of nickel — ^worth 23^ cents 
in American money and about the same 
size as the American nickel. 

Almost everyone in the Canal Zone 
speaks English, and while Spanish is the 
official language of the Republic of Pan- 
ama, the majority of the people speak, or 
at least understand, some English. Thei 




Sunset on the Caribbean Sea 

negroes are mostly Jamaicans brought 
over from the West Indies during the 
building of the canal, and they use a 
weird dialect that is as puzzling as a lost 
language to most travelers. 

Fifty-Five 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 




Loading Bananas on Panama Railroad Train 

THE CANAL POLICE 

H I L E the native police- 
men represent the "strong 
arm of the law" in those 
portions of Panama out- 
side the Canal Zone, they 
are backed up by the 
American police force in 
the zone itself. The 
canal police were organized, under direc- 
tion of President Roosevelt, by George R. 
Shanton, one of the "Rough Riders" of 
Spanish-American War fame. 

Fifty-Six 





Col. Shanton and his successors selected 
their personnel, as a rule, from the ranks 
of the men who have seen service in the 
armed forces of the United States, believ- 
ing rightly that the veterans are better 
able than recruits from civilian life to keep 
the lawless under proper supervision. 

Criminals have found that conditions 
in the Canal Zone are hardly favorable to 
their "occupations," and following the 
imposition of heavy prison sentences on 
those of their number who regarded Pan- 
ama as a frontier of the older type and 
acted in accordance, they have, for the 
most part, left the canal strictly out of 
their itineraries. Although Americans, 
Jamaicans, Spaniards, and natives live on 
the canal, there is very little mixing of the 
races, each living to themselves, and as a 
result racial friction has been largely 
avoided. 

The respect of the natives and Ja- 
maicans for the police has become very 
marked, and the ability of the men in 
khaki to keep order among the foreigners 
as well as among the members of their 
own race, speaks well for the police ad- 
ministration of the Canal Zone. The 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



canal police have a remarkable esprit de 
corps, and they are as proud of their 
records and their efficiency as the Texas 
Rangers or the mounted police of the 
Canadian Northwest. 

FISH AND GAME 

RAVELERS who desire to 
"go a-hunting" in Pan- 
ama, should call on the 
executive secretary of the 
Panama Canal, whose 
offices are located at Bal- 
boa Heights, and obtain 
copies of the official leaflet 
containing the full text of laws and regu- 
lations governing hunting and the carry- 
ing of firearms in the Canal Zone. 

Although the law requiring hunting 
permits is very strict, a provision is made 
allowing persons engaged in the naval or 
land forces of the United States to hunt 
on the public lands of the Canal Zone with- 
out permits. 

The rules and regulations should be ob- 
tained and read, however, to avoid viola- 
tions of the laws enacted for the protec- 
tion of watersheds and game preservesn 



i 


i 





Panama from the Old Sea Wall Leading to Chirigui 
Prison 

All hunting is prohibited on the watershed 
of any reservoir within that part of the 
Canal Zone lying west of the Canal line 
between the Carabali River and the Co- 
coli River, and within that part of the 
Canal Zone lying east of the Panama Rail- 

Fifty-Seven 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



Administration Building and Residential Quarters, 
Balboa 

road between Frijoles and the Chagres 
River to the coast. The restrictions do 
not apply to the "east-named region" on 
Sundays and holidays. Fire-hunting at 
night and hunting by means of spring or 
trap are prohibited, and rules protecting 
birds ' nests are in force. 

Among the favorite fishing grounds of 
Panama are those in Panama Bay, where 
bonita, jack, corbena, red snapper, and 
several other varieties of fish swarm at 
various seasons of the year. Fishermen 
usually go out in motor sailers or steamerS;i 

Fifty-Eight 





which run at slow speed while the followers 
of the noted Walton troll with spoon 
hooks, which are used with either hand 
line or rod and reel. The fish in Panama 
Bay range from 4 to 60 pounds in weight 
and are often found close to the islands. 
Tarpon fishing is one of the favorite sports 
at the Gatun Spillway, where tarpon are 
found in comparative abundance. 

A MASTER BUILDER 

E HAVE read of the suc- 
cess of the canal project 
and the difficulties over- 
come by the American 
engineers in charge of the 
venture, but little has 
been said of the man un- 
der whose direction prac- 
tically the entire work was done, and this 
tale would be incomplete without a chapj- 
ter devoted to the achievements of Maj. 
Gen. George W. Goethals, master builder 
of the Panama Canal. 

Gen. Goethals was born in Brooklyn, 
N. Y., on June 29, 1858, of Dutch parents, 
and graduated second in the West Point 




PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



Class of 1880. He devoted his attention 
for the next 20 years to building dams and 
irrigation ditches in the West, fortifica- 
tions on the Atlantic coast, and was also 
instructor in engineering at West Point, 
chief engineer of the First Army Corps in 
the Spanish-American War, and a mem- 
ber of the General Staff of the Army 
before going to the Canal Zone. 

Gen. Goethals was a major when he 
accompanied William H. Taft, then Secre- 
tary of War, to Panama in 1905 for the 
purpose of planningfortifications, and 
upon his return to Washington he pre- 
pared such a masterly report that he re- 
ceived favorable attention from the Presi- 
dent and the Secretary. And when the 
third Isthmian Canal Commission was or- 
ganized Maj. Goethals was appointed the 
Chairman and Chief Engineer. Upon 
being promoted to lieutenant colonel, the 
new chairman of the Commission assumed 
command in the Canal Zone, and carried 
out many changes in plans and methods 
to facilitate the work of construction. 

Col. Goethals started his Canal Zone 
career with a determination worthy of the 
undertaking, and where the eagle hadi 



digged and screamed before, it now just 
digged and saved its screams for the day 
when the canal should be completed, and 
its cry could be one of realization rather 
than of anticipation. 

Every day in the week Col. Goethals 
would travel along the canal route in an 
automobile with flanged wheels and cow- 
catcher, resembling a switch engine and 
painted the regulation yellow of the pas- 
senger coaches of the Panama Railroad. 
The automobile was given the picturesque 
name of ''Yellow Peril" and ''Brain 
Wagon" by the canal workers, and shirk- 
ers immediately became busy when it 
came speeding down the track toward their 
respective stations. Col. Goethals was 
not content to leave the work of personal 
supervision to his very able assistants, but 
would travel here and there, from one end 
of the Isthmus to the other, offering sug- 
gestions, giving orders, all with the view 
in mind of increasing the efficiency of 
his army of engineers, mechanics, and 
laborers. 

The master builder was quite popular 
with his men, not only because they ad- 
mired his capable way of directing the 

Fifty-Nine 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



digging of the canal, but because lie took 
a personal interest in them — and every 
canal worker, whether he be high official 
or lowly laborer, was sure of a hearing 
when he went to Col. Goethals with a 
grievance. 

The respect of the canal workers for 
Col. Goethals increased when they found 
that he would not permit any disturbing 
element to dictate his policies or censor his 
plans. The point is best illustrated by 
the following incident: An engineer on 
one of the dirt trains became intoxicated, 
ran over a negro laborer, and was sent to 
the penitentiary. The railroad men told 
Col. Goethals that the engineer must be 
released by a certain day or they would 
stop work. ''The man will remain in 
prison and every man who quits work on 
that account will be dropped from the 
rolls," stated Col. Goethals. The engi- 
neers did not strike. 

In addition to his other characteris- 
tics, Col. Goethals possessed the desirable 
trait of being able to do his work econom- 
ically. In 1908, for example, it cost 11| 
cents to load a yard of material with steam 



Sixty 




shovels, while in 1912 it cost between 6 and 
7 cents. The cost of drilling in 1908 was 
14 cents a yard, while in 1912 the cost had 
dropped to between 11 and 12 cents. 

Col. Goethals was fortunate also in 
having the assistance of many of the ablest 
engineers and executives in the United 
States, among them being Col. Gaillard, 
Civil Engineer Rousseau, U. S. N., Col. 
Sibert, Col.Devol, Col. Hodges, and others. 
But it is safe to say that the canal project 
might still be uncompleted or the expense 
might have been greatly increased had not 
a man of the type of Col. Goethals been in 
charge. He is a master builder, who 
fashioned the great canal with the same 
ingenuity that an enipire builder fashions 
a great nation. Monuments may be 
erected to Maj. Gen. Goethals and his 
name will go down in history, but he 
could do well without such honors, for the 
Panama Canal will stand as a mighty 
monument to his ability and the courage 
and perseverance of the American people, 
while the waterway will very probably 
be in use when the histories of to-day 
have crumbled to dust. 



WASHINGTON : GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1920 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



MEMORANDUM 

These blank pages should be used to note items of interest to which you will want to refer 



Sixty-One 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



MEMORANDUM 



Sixty- Two 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE 



MEMORANDUM 



Sixty-Three 



I TRRftRY OF CONGRESS 

■li 

015 817 538 






